Homeland season 4

The fourth season of the American television drama series Homeland premiered on October 5, 2014, and concluded on December 21, 2014, on Showtime, consisting of 12 episodes.^[1][2] The series started as a loosely based variation of the two-season run of the Israeli television series Hatufim (English: Prisoners of War) created by Gideon Raff and is developed for American television by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa.^[3] The fourth season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 8, 2015,^[4] and became available for streaming on Hulu on August 1, 2016.^[5]

Homeland
Season 4
Blu-ray cover art
Starring	Claire Danes Rupert Friend Nazanin Boniadi Laila Robins Tracy Letts Mandy Patinkin
No. of episodes	12
Release
Original network	Showtime
Original release	October 5 (2014-10-05) – December 21, 2014 (2014-12-21)
Season chronology
List of episodes

Cast and characters

Main article: List of Homeland characters

Main

Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin and Rupert Friend (left to right) portray lead roles Carrie Mathison, Saul Berenson and Peter Quinn, respectively.

• Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA intelligence officer assigned to the Counterterrorism Center
• Rupert Friend as Peter Quinn, a CIA SAD/SOG (black ops) operative
• Nazanin Boniadi as Fara Sherazi, an intelligent, young, and professional Persian analyst
• Laila Robins as Martha Boyd, the United States ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
• Tracy Letts as Andrew Lockhart, the new director of the CIA
• Mandy Patinkin as Saul Berenson, Carrie's old boss and mentor, now working in the private sector

Recurring

• Suraj Sharma as Aayan Ibrahim, a Pakistani medical student
• Amy Hargreaves as Maggie Mathison, Carrie's sister and a psychiatrist
• Sarita Choudhury as Mira Berenson, Saul's wife
• Alex Lanipekun as Hank Wonham, a CIA officer at the Kabul station
• Akshay Kumar as Rahim, a Pakistani medical student
• Shavani Seth as Kiran, Aayan's girlfriend and fellow medical student
• F. Murray Abraham as Dar Adal, a retired black ops specialist
• Michael O'Keefe as John Redmond, a CIA deputy station chief in Pakistan
• Maury Sterling as Max Piotrowski, a freelance surveillance expert
• Mark Moses as Dennis Boyd, Martha's husband and a political science teacher at Islamabad's Quaid-I-Azam University
• Raza Jaffrey as Aasar Khan, the counter-terrorism chief of Pakistan's ISI
• Nimrat Kaur as Tasneem Qureishi, a member of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
• Art Malik as Bunran "Bunny" Latif, a retired Pakistani general
• Numan Acar as Haissam Haqqani, a high-priority target and Taliban leader

Special guest

• Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody, who appears in a hallucination of Carrie's.

Guest

• Patrick St. Esprit as Aaron Gage
• Corey Stoll as Sandy Bachman, the CIA station chief in Pakistan
• Adam Godley as Jordan Harris, a CIA case officer
• Emily Walker as the landlady Eden, with whom Quinn has a brief relationship
• Nina Hoss as Astrid, Quinn's former lover who works for the German embassy
• Victoria Clark as Ellen Mathison, Carrie's mother
• John Getz as Joe Crocker

Episodes

See also: List of Homeland episodes

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date	Prod. code	U.S. viewers (millions)
37	1	"The Drone Queen"	Lesli Linka Glatter	Alex Gansa	October 5, 2014 (2014-10-05)	4WAH01	1.61[6]
Carrie, now operating as the CIA station chief in Kabul, authorizes an airstrike on an Islamabad farmhouse believed to be the whereabouts of Taliban leader Haissam Haqqani. However, reports soon emerge that the airstrike occurred during a wedding, killing Haqqani and 40 other civilians. Among those killed were the family of medical student Aayan Ibrahim, who survived the airstrike and has a video of the wedding he was filming on his mobile phone at the moment of the strike. One of Aayan's friends uploads the video online against his wishes, creating a rift between the United States government and Pakistani armed forces. Carrie travels to the Islamabad embassy to meet with its station chief, Sandy Bachman. Before Carrie arrives, Sandy leaves the embassy unprotected to meet with the secret source of his intelligence on Haqqani. At the same time, Sandy's identity is leaked to the Pakistani press as the one responsible for the airstrike. Carrie and Quinn attempt to pick up Sandy, but a violent mob surrounds their vehicle and beats Sandy to death. Carrie and Quinn narrowly escape.
38	2	"Trylon and Perisphere"	Keith Gordon	Chip Johannessen	October 5, 2014 (2014-10-05)	4WAH02	1.61[6]
Carrie and Quinn return to Washington; Lockhart recalls Carrie from her posting in Afghanistan as punishment for the botched airstrike. Carrie struggles to form a bond with her infant daughter Frannie, who has been under the care of Carrie's sister Maggie in her absence. Quinn, meanwhile, lapses into alcoholism while coping with the events in Islamabad, for which he feels responsible. He has a sexual encounter with his landlady and is later arrested for beating two men at a restaurant. When Carrie bails him out, he gives her the name of Jordan Harris, a former Islamabad case officer who was removed from his posting despite an exemplary record. Carrie tracks down Harris and learns that Lockhart had him transferred out of Islamabad after Harris reported that Sandy was buying information using state secrets. Carrie uses this information to leverage Lockhart into placing her in charge of the Islamabad station, taking over for Sandy.
39	3	"Shalwar Kameez"	Lesli Linka Glatter	Alexander Cary	October 12, 2014 (2014-10-12)	4WAH03	1.22[7]
Carrie arrives in Islamabad as the new station chief and learns that it has been placed on lockdown under Martha's orders. However, Carrie has set up an alternate base of operations with Fara and Max, aiming to establish contact with Aayan (who has been threatened out of talking to the media). After Aayan refuses to speak with Fara, Carrie makes contact herself, posing as a journalist, and offers Aayan protection as well as safe passage to London where he can continue his medical studies. Saul arrives in Islamabad to meet with U.S. ambassador Martha Boyd, and old friend and colleague, as well as offer Carrie assistance. Meanwhile, Quinn submits his resignation to the CIA, but faces pressure to stay from Dar Adal, who goads Quinn with his failure to protect Sandy. While watching video footage of the mob's murder of Sandy, Quinn discovers evidence that it was a premeditated attack and reports this to Carrie, who implores him to return to Pakistan. Quinn reluctantly agrees.
40	4	"Iron in the Fire"	Michael Offer	Patrick Harbinson	October 19, 2014 (2014-10-19)	4WAH04	1.35[8]
Aayan discovers that he has been expelled from his university for stealing medicine samples. With nowhere else to go, he accepts Carrie's offer. Carrie receives confirmation from Aayan that the man who threatened him was ISI agent Farhad Ghazi, the same man Quinn identified as having coordinated the attack that led to Sandy's death. Carrie and her team begin surveillance on Ghazi. Dennis Boyd, the ambassador's husband, is approached by ISI agent Tasneem Qureishi, who has discovered that Dennis was Sandy's secret source of U.S. intel. She uses this to blackmail him into becoming her informant. Fara follows Aayan and discovers that Haqqani – his uncle – is alive, having never died in the airstrike, and is receiving deliveries of medicine from Aayan. Carrie realizes that she can use Aayan to get to Haqqani. She installs Aayan at a safehouse, claiming that they must wait several days for his passport and visa, a ploy which buys her time to interrogate him and earn his trust. As part of her recruiting strategy, Carrie seduces Aayan.
41	5	"About a Boy"	Charlotte Sieling	Meredith Stiehm	October 26, 2014 (2014-10-26)	4WAH05	1.52[9]
Carrie interviews Aayan about his relationship with Haqqani, his uncle, but he panics when she broaches the rumor that Haqqani may be alive. On his way back to the United States, Saul spots Farhad Ghazi at the airport, but is captured by Ghazi's men, who are working with Tasneem. Fara and Quinn follow a cleric who was seen to be accompanying Haqqani, but are unable to proceed past a checkpoint, unaware that a kidnapped Saul is being transported in the cleric's car. Quinn confronts Carrie over her lack of assistance in the mission in favor of recruiting Aayan, and accuses her of sexually exploiting the boy. Aayan later confides in Carrie that Haqqani is alive.
42	6	"From A to B and Back Again"	Lesli Linka Glatter	Chip Johannessen	November 2, 2014 (2014-11-02)	4WAH06	1.54[10]
Carrie gives Aayan his new passport and rehearses him on the details of his identity. He and Carrie are attacked by several men at the safehouse, but Aayan is able to escape. The break-in is revealed to be a ruse engineered by Carrie to prompt Aayan to seek refuge with his uncle, Haqqani. Dennis Boyd later tracks down the safehouse and reports back to Tasneem that Carrie has procured a new identity for Aayan along with evidence of Carrie's bipolar disorder. Quinn learns that Ghazi never left Islamabad and that Saul is unreachable. Carrie, Fara and Max use a GPS tracker in Aayan's passport to monitor him as he travels to a rendezvous with Haqqani, where a CIA drone is positioned overhead. However, Haqqani emerges with a captured Saul, aware that he is under watch, and executes Aayan for leading him into a trap. An enraged Carrie orders a drone strike even with Saul present at the site, but Quinn talks her down, allowing Haqqani and his men to leave with Saul in tow.
43	7	"Redux"	Carl Franklin	Alexander Cary	November 9, 2014 (2014-11-09)	4WAH07	1.55[11]
News of Saul's capture reaches the United States, prompting Lockhart to travel to Islamabad. With Saul's presence protecting him from an airstrike, Haqqani holds Saul captive at a compound near the Afghanistan border, where he plots to negotiate Saul's release in exchange for several prisoners. Dennis breaks into Carrie's apartment using a key given to him by Tasneem, and replaces her medication with a hallucinogenic substance. Carrie unwittingly takes the replacement drugs and begins suffering increasingly severe paranoid delusions while following one of Aayan's contacts. Carrie is soon taken off the streets by the police and delivered to a house where she has a vision of Nicholas Brody. Carrie breaks down crying in his arms, unaware that it is a hallucination and that she is actually in the presence of ISI colonel Aasar Khan.
44	8	"Halfway to a Donut"	Alex Graves	Chip Johannessen	November 16, 2014 (2014-11-16)	4WAH08	1.66[12]
Carrie awakens in Khan's house with no memory of how she got there. She surmises that she has been poisoned, but Khan denies his involvement. Khan later learns from Tasneem that the poisoning was engineered to remove Carrie from Islamabad, and that his intervention foiled the ISI's plans. Over live video, Haqqani presents a captured Saul to the U.S. embassy and names the prisoners he wants released, but Saul begs the U.S. to refuse Haqqani's demands. That night, Saul escapes his captivity, and is guided by Carrie and Quinn to a nearby CIA refuge. During a meeting between the U.S. embassy and the ISI, Carrie realizes that the Pakistanis already have Saul's location. Unable to extract Saul, Carrie reluctantly directs him back into the hands of the Taliban, refusing Saul's wish to die rather than be recaptured. Lockhart decides that the U.S. will accept Haqqani's terms in the prisoner exchange. That night, Khan informs Carrie that Dennis Boyd is the ISI's mole in the embassy.
45	9	"There's Something Else Going On"	Seith Mann	Patrick Harbinson	November 23, 2014 (2014-11-23)	4WAH09	1.77[13]
Carrie has Dennis detained at the embassy with Martha's help. During the prisoner exchange, the Taliban use a young boy wearing a suicide vest as leverage to ensure the release of the five prisoners. Saul refuses to move, hoping to prevent the exchange from succeeding, but Carrie convinces him to get up. However, their convoy is struck by two RPGs on the way back to the embassy, prompting Lockhart to send the embassy's security forces to the scene. Dennis realizes that the security personnel are being diverted from an incoming attack on the embassy, and admits to Martha that he told Tasneem of the embassy's hidden underground entrance. As they speak, Haqqani and a troupe of armed soldiers use the tunnel to enter the embassy.
46	10	"13 Hours in Islamabad"	Dan Attias	Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon	December 7, 2014 (2014-12-07)	4WAH10	1.95[14]
Carrie and Saul escape the Taliban's assault on their convoy; Carrie phones Khan for help, but Tasneem forces him to stall his backup, revealing to him the ISI's allegiance to the Taliban. Haqqani and his soldiers storm the embassy, slaughtering numerous personnel. Lockhart, carrying a package detailing the CIA's informant network in Pakistan, joins Martha and Dennis in a secure room. Haqqani and his men begin killing off survivors of the attack until the package is handed over. When Haqqani threatens to kill Fara, Lockhart relents and gives up the package in exchange for her life, but Haqqani executes her nonetheless, and ultimately manages to escape. The White House cuts relations with Pakistan and prepares to evacuate the remaining embassy staff; Quinn, however, goes rogue and kidnaps Farhad Ghazi in hopes of locating Haqqani. Carrie is given permission to stay in Islamabad for five more days in order to find Quinn.
47	11	"Krieg Nicht Lieb"	Clark Johnson	Alexander Cary & Chip Johannessen	December 14, 2014 (2014-12-14)	4WAH11	2.11[15]
Quinn visits his former lover Astrid, a German intelligence officer stationed in Islamabad, and receives her help in locating Haqqani's current whereabouts. He has Aayan's ex-girlfriend upload a video of his execution to the internet, prompting public protests intended to draw Haqqani out of hiding, and assembles a bomb that he plans to detonate during the demonstration. Tasneem sends a group of pro-Haqqani counter-protesters to the scene in response. While searching for Quinn, Carrie is devastated to learn from her sister that their father has died of a stroke. She arrives at the protest and manages to talk Quinn down from detonating the bomb, but attempts to kill Haqqani herself when he arrives to greet his supporters. However, Khan prevents her from shooting Haqqani, alerting her to Dar Adal's presence in Haqqani's vehicle.
48	12	"Long Time Coming"	Lesli Linka Glatter	Meredith Stiehm	December 21, 2014 (2014-12-21)	4WAH12	1.92[16]
Dar Adal informs Saul that he made a deal with Haqqani, who agreed not to harbor terrorists in Afghanistan in exchange for being removed from the CIA's kill list. Dar assures Saul that the video evidence of his capture by Haqqani will not be publicized, preserving Saul's chances of becoming CIA director. Carrie returns home from Islamabad for her father's funeral. She and Quinn reunite and share a kiss later that night; Quinn suggests to Carrie that they leave the CIA together, but Carrie believes she is incapable of upholding a relationship. Carrie tracks down her estranged mother, who apologizes for abandoning her family and assures Carrie that her bipolar disorder does not prevent her from having a healthy relationship. Carrie attempts to call Quinn, but he has already accepted a high-risk mission in Syria with Dar's group, believing Carrie turned him down. Carrie visits Dar Adal and confronts him over his dealings with Haqqani, claiming that Saul would never approve; however, she is dismayed to find Saul already at Dar's house, and realizes that he in fact agreed to the deal.

Production

On October 22, 2013, Homeland was renewed for a fourth season, consisting of 12 episodes.^[1] Production and filming for the fourth season began in June 2014, shifting production to Cape Town, South Africa.^[17] Executive producers for the fourth season are Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon, Gideon Raff, Alexander Cary, Chip Johannessen, Meredith Stiehm, Avi Nir, and Ran Telem.^[18]

Casting

Nazanin Boniadi, who had a recurring role in the third season as Fara Sherazi, was promoted to series regular for the fourth season.^[19] Several actors were cast for the fourth season in June 2014, including new series regular Laila Robins, as well as Corey Stoll, Suraj Sharma, Raza Jaffrey, and Michael O'Keefe, who all have recurring roles.^[20][21][22] In July 2014, Nimrat Kaur, Mark Moses and Art Malik were additionally cast in recurring roles.^[23]

Reception

Critical response

The fourth season received positive reviews from critics, with particular acclaim for the second half. On Metacritic, it has a score of 74 out of 100, based on 22 reviews.^[24] On Rotten Tomatoes, the season received an 82% rating based on 49 reviews with an average rating of 8.0/10. The critical consensus reads "Homeland is back on top, with a renewed energy and focus not seen since its first season."^[25] Verne Gay of Newsday gave the season premiere an "A+" grade and wrote that the show "feels as fresh, important and relevant as yesterday's news – or tomorrow's news. A bracing, intelligent start."^[26] Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe noted it has improved over its previous seasons, and wrote, "The rebooted Homeland promises to be an engaging, streamlined CIA thriller with a few big ideas about America and the war on terrorism."^[27] Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times also noted the series improvement and wrote, "Early episodes are strong, if not as shattering as the inaugural season."^[28] The season finale was well-received, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the episode a 100% rating based on 12 critic reviews, saying "Subverting expectations, "Long Time Coming" makes for a smart, sharp, and satisfyingly subdued finale for an excellent season of Homeland."^[29]

Accolades

For the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards, the cast was nominated for Best Drama Ensemble, Claire Danes was nominated for Best Drama Actress, and the series was nominated for Best Stunt Team.^[30] For the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, Danes was nominated for Best Actress – Television Series Drama.^[31] For the 67th Directors Guild of America Awards, Lesli Linka Glatter won for Outstanding Directing – Drama Series for the episode "From A to B and Back Again", and Dan Attias received a nomination in the same category for directing "13 Hours in Islamabad".^[32][33] For the 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards, the series was nominated for Best Drama Series and Mandy Patinkin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.^[34]

For the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, the series received five nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, Claire Danes for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, F. Murray Abraham for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, and Lesli Linka Glatter for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for "From A to B and Back Again".^[35]

Criticisms

Laura Durkay of The Washington Post criticized the show for perpetuating cultural stereotypes and Islamophobia.^[36]

According to media reports, Pakistani officials were unhappy over the depiction of Pakistan in the fourth season. Nadeem Hotiana, spokesperson of Pakistan Embassy, said, "Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US, but also to the people of the US."^[37] A source was quoted as saying, "Islamabad is a quiet, picturesque city with beautiful mountains and lush greenery. In Homeland, it’s portrayed as a grimy hellhole and war zone where shootouts and bombs go off with dead bodies scattered around. Nothing is further from the truth."^[37] The alleged Islamabad scenes were filmed in Cape Town, South Africa.^[37] The officials also lashed out at "absurd" portrayal of terrorist treatment in Pakistan, saying, "Repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan is complicit in protecting the terrorists at the expense of innocent Pakistani civilians is not only absurd but also an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel in the war against terrorism."^[37]